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To Become a God

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To Become a God To become a god Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self­ Divinization in Early China Michael J. Puett Published by (he Harv3rd University Asia Center for (he H arvard-Yenching Institute Distributed by Harvard U niversity Press Cambridge, Massachu5ens, a~d London, England, 2.00:2. I Anthropomorphizing the spirits Sacrifice and Divination in Late Bronze Age China In both strains of the secondary literature discussed in me Introduction, a common reading of the Chinese Bronu Age pTev2m: humans and spiries were seen as continuous and were perceived to be harmoniously linked. Moreover, this period is repeatedly sun .as the formarive era in Chinese his­ tory. the period when one first finds the assumption of a continuity between the human and divine realms that, the argument goes, thereafter petvades Chinese history. Weber saw this .as a restricting aspect of Chinese culrore. as did Roct'Z, who argued that it ultimately reversed the transcendenw break­ through of the Axial Age. Most of the scholars we looked at, howevcr, from Chang and Mote to Gnlham and Schwam. fully cdebr.ned it. But is it true! Were humans and spirits seen as linked in a harmonious continuum? And is it true that this period marks the beginning of a set of assumptions that (for bener or worse) predominated in later Chinese history~ In order to explore this question, it will be wonhwhile to look anew at some of these materiaLs :as well :as at some of the secondary literature devoted to the Bronze Age. " ANTHROPOMOR P H I ZING THII SPIRI TS ANTHROPOMORPH I ZING THE SPIRITS J3 ~ interpreted a.s misfortunes, so du.t, if a city were laid out as an im4go mwndi with The Foundations of Chinese Cosmological the cosmogony a.s paradigmatic model, it became necessary co maintain this parallel­ and Bureaucratic Thought ism betWecn rnOlCTocosmoS :and microcosmos by potrticipation in the seasonal festi­ vals rhat constituted man's contribution eo the regulation of cyclic rime,:and by in­ One thinker who has tremendously influenced several recent scholars of the corporating in the planning a gcnerous amount of symbolism! Chinese Bronze Age is Mircca Eliade. It was Eliade who populuized the no­ tion that primitive culrures univers:lUy <latmpt to define a sacred space in The capiral thus serves as an axis mundi, in the same way as a ~ sham an's sap­ which they can link Heaven and Earrh: MMountams are often looked on :.l.S Ilng" • docs. ' the place where sky and earth meet, a 'central poinc' therefore, the point After describing the "cosmo-magical basis" of urban fo rms, systematized through which {he Axis Mundi goes, a region impregnated with the sacred, a by Eliade as involving things such as a "parallelism between ehe macrocosmos spoc where one can pass from one cosmic zone to anoth er.~l Building on and me microcosmos" and necessitating the use of ritual ro "mainrain the Graner, Eliade argued chac the Chinese capical W:.l.S perceived along similar harmony berween the world of gods and ehe world of men,H as well as a "par­ lines-as .an axiJ mundi, or a symbolic cosmic mountain: MIn China, [he capi­ ticipation in the symbolism of the center, as expressed by some form of axis ul of the perfect sovereign stood at the exact centre of the universe, thac is, mundi,..6 Wheadey then noces me degree to which Chinese thinking con­ at the summit of the cosmic mountain.";! forms to the Eliadun model: Paul Wheatley has extended Eliade's argument to formulate a theory of Indeed, the a.strobiological conceptual framework of which thesc ideas are :an cx .. the origins of urban centers in China. Like E1iade, Wheatley argues rhac pression wa.s structurally conformable to the associative or co-ordinarivc stylc of Chinese urban centers noe only Hin traditional China but also throughout thinking of which the Chinese wcre perhaps the foremost exponents. In f:act, it H most of the rest of Asia emerged out of a widespread form of cosmological might even ~ said that the prc-establishcd harmony of the Chinese universe, which chinking. which he refers to as Has crobiology.N Given this cosmology, the goal was OlChieved when all beings spontaneously followed the internal necessities of their of ritual specialists was to H(Scablish an ontological link berween the realm of own naturc, and which led Chinese philosophers to seek reality in relation rather the sacred and the realm of the profane. Hl than in substance, represented the most sophisticated expression of asrrobiological 7 For Wheatley, ehe figure who has most convincingly worked out the concepts ever attained by any people. N8 ways in which capitals were consrruceed according to such cosmological Not only does China conform to this "traditional way of thinking. but models is Eliade: China is in fact [he fullese and mose sophisticated expression of it. In this Throughout the cominent of Asia ... there wa.s thus a tendency for kingdonu, capi­ specific sense, Wheatley's argumenr is quiee comparable to Graham's view tals, tempies, shrines, and so forth, to ~ constructed a.s replica.s of the cosmos. chat China was the civilization thac most fully developed the universal mode Mircea Eliade ha.s illustrated this point with a plethora of examples drawn prinurily of correlative thinking. ftOm the architecture, epigraphy, and literature of the ancient Near Ea.st and India, K .. C. C hang has a similar argument, although he builds it on slightly dif­ and numerous ochers could ~ adduced from Southeast Asia .md NudeOlr America.. ferent foundations. In a highly influential article, Chen Mengjia argued mat, In the a..mobiological mode of thought, irregularities in the cosmic order could only 9 in the S hang dynasty, kings were shamans. K. C. Chang developed this ar­ gument in detail and, as mentioned in the Introduction, saw shamanism as I. E1ud~. P4Urrn, in Comp"T41i"e RtligiM, pp. 99-100. 1. Ibid .. , p. 101, referring to Graner, '-" ptmh chinoi..,. p. 114. Su also EJ.i,.de, Tht s..c.c:! d,.J I"" Profane. p. J9. Eliade', ref<,rence ro Graner i.! slightly misleading. Grand. concern in the 4 . Ibid" p. 417· P'luage thar E1iade cite. is rhe notion of the ruler a, rhe microcosm of the universe. AI Gra· S. Ibid. net argue_ on [he previow page: "he [the king] iJ [he center, lhe pivol of the world" (u. pt"m 6. Ibid., p. 418. ,hi"oile, p. )1)). Elude would hav. found bolter .uppor! for hi.! argument in Granel'l dUen ... ?Ibid. lion of lim( and lP'lce in Qlinese dl0ugh! (u. f<n,h ,hiltQue, pp. 77 ~ 99) . a. Ibid. ). W I JC~lley, Tht Pi~Of of tilt Four Qg4rtm, pp. "14 -1~. 9. Chen Mengji;!, ·Slung dai de ,henhlla yu wwhu .." 34 ANT H ROPOMORPH I Z I NG THE SPIRI TS ANTHROPOMORPHIZING THI! SPIR I TS lS lying ~t me heart of Chinese culture.10 He compiled bodies of evidence that, hoi or other substances bring about a trance, during which the shaman engaged in in his opinion, Hpoinc to an ancient Chinese shamanism at the core of an­ imagined f1ighe Possibly, but there is :u yet no evidence for mis. The role of animals 14 cient Chinese belief and ritual systems, which were preoccupied wi th the in the ritual art of the Shang may provide significant clUCl. NIl interpenetration of heaven and eanh. Chang builds on his rheory of shamanism to provide a reading of the ori­ Chang did not indicate which scholarly definition of shamanism he had gin of the Chinese srate comparable to that given by Wheatley. Chang reads 12 in mind in making these arguments, bur he did occasionally refer to Eliade. the 1m Neolithic in China as an "Age of Jade Cong [jade rubes]. the period Moreover, as is apparent ITam the passage quoted in the preceding para­ when shamanism and politics joined forces:iS Chang reads mese jade rubes graph, Chang's in terpretacion of a shamanistic cosmology is identical to Eli­ as symbols ofHthe interpenetr.uion of heaven and carrhH and as thus repre­ ade's. T hus, although Whc.adey did nor lrgue that the Shang kings were senting HOI. microcosmic axis mundi.H16 The Chinese Bronze Age. "the period l shamans, Chang's reading of ea rly Chine~ culture is quite simib.r [0 the one of the further development of shamanistic politics,H followed from [his. ? devdopecl by Wheatley. Thus, like Wheatley. Chang's reading is similarly based on the notion mar For Chang, divination-the ure Shang rinul about which, because of Chinese civilization developed through ritual specialists who artempted to oracle-bone inscriptions. we know me mon-was based in shamanism. as join Heaven and Earth by building a particular axi, m!lndi. H was the bin (or Hhosting ) ritual: Julia Ching has expanded on this point as well. Chinese civilization, she Wu Shang divination an act of Shang shamanism~ The inscriptions make it cleat argues. in part came together because of a common inspiration. they were directed to long-departed mcestors, md that the diviner served as an in­ that the human being is open to the divine and the spiritual, attuned to the divine termediary. The inscriptions often COntain the word which in later classical texts bin, and the spiritual, and desirous of becoming one with the divine and the spiritual.. I usually means to receive as ;a. guClt or to be a guest. In rhe oracle bone inscriptions, am here referring [ 0 the familiar adage that describes the harmony underlining Chi­ the wotd is often placed between the word for king md the name of a specific ances­ nese thought and civilization: Heaven and humanity are one-tianran hqi (literally: tor or of Oi; the Supreme God.
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